#electronic music
FINDING A TONE THAT ISN’T
Our tactical roadtripper, TRUNDL.buddy and the Ghostly Wi-filactery, flings you through a gauntlet of environments, each with their own distinct color palette and style. Between each one, you’ll guide TRUNDL.buddy through decisions, shaping both mind and journey.
IT IS HARD
Early on, I wanted the music to branch alongside the narrative, incorporating different genres to reflect the changing personality of the player’s character. Violent or aggressive choices might transition to death metal or the militaristic styling of Battlestar Galactica. Pacifistic choices might swing more acoustic, Appalachian. Aside from the obvious challenges of producing such a wide variety of cues for every level in the game, there was another less obvious problem. The baseline song would need a neutral tone.
Creating music without emotion has been incredibly challenging for me. I’ve always felt the two are inextricable. But over the last couple of weeks, I’ve discovered an interesting approach. Percussion and rhythm don’t carry much emotion by themselves, just a sense of energy and movement. I stripped out the melodic instruments entirely; built an underscore with just rhythmic textures and a single (tonic) pitch. When the player takes dramatic action, I comment by introducing melody and harmony – emotion.
Another issue I discovered is how quickly the “mix” fills up in-game; ambient sounds, engine sounds, enemies attacking you, obstacles whizzing by and music all playing at the same time. This buries the ambience completely – wind, insects, animal sounds. Ambience serves almost no gameplay purpose, except to ground you in the world. But having grown up with adventure games like MystandIco, I value these sounds highly and don’t want them lost.
PROBLEM + PROBLEM = SOLUTION
I needed neutral music and I’ve got buried ambience. The answer to both, musical ambience. I’ve incorporated environmental sounds into the rhythmic texture for each level’s backing theme. The music now feels connected to the place it’s scoring, still serves the gameplay, and provides a neutral base that pivots harmonically with the player’s actions. And I don’t have to worry about the mix as much. That, friends, is how I murdered two avian friend-beasts in the most primal way imaginable. I don’t even know where this rock came from… I… hello?
Check out the video you probably already watched for some quick examples!
Soren Laulainen
Music Composer and Sound Designer
sorenlaulainen.com
Hey there! I’m Soren Laulainen, composer and sound designer for TRUNDL.buddy and the Ghostly Wi-filactery. After spending a little over a decade scoring films and webisodes, this is my first foray into interactive music – which, to me, continues to be a relatively nascent and unexplored territory.
TRUNDL.buddy is a deliberately small project with high ambitions, designed small so that the inevitable scope creep doesn’t capsize us. An exercise in creative opportunities borne from constraints. A game which certainly won’t fully realize every creative goal I would love to accomplish – immersion! synesthesia! synchronicity! – but might break new ground all the same.
Finding the “musical soul” of the game is an exciting process. Our character begins life as mindless, expressionless robot, but those eyes are brimming with idiotic bliss: the impulse to just drive imbues him with a sort of dogged enthusiasm in spite of his empty mind. And what better way to capture both a lack and extreme intensity of emotion than with Vocaloids?
Vocaloids are synthetic pop singers who have become very popular in Japan. You write lyrics and melodies and the Vocaloid software synthesizes vocals automatically. I’ll be using them for the main theme in TRUNDL.buddy, which we return to a few times throughout the game. My goal is to have them convey parts of the narrative and adapt to various choices the player makes throughout the game. Here’s one of my first music sketches with them.
Soren Laulainen
Music Composer and Sound Designer
sorenlaulainen.com
Frogg Compusound, made by ex-fOXX employees around 1977. Digital control, analog path! ;-) https://bit.ly/2KtjOcO #effectsdatabase #guitarpedals #guitareffects #effectspedals #guitarfx #fxpedals #pedalporn #geartalk #knowyourtone #pedalboard #pedalyouhaveneverseen #frogg #foxx #compusound #froggcompusound (on Instagram: https://instagr.am/p/B_VIABiFkuv/)
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dave gahan icons for twitter with psd :)
•like/reblog if you save pls
7E Guest Artist Interview - Kim Pimmel
Kim Pimmel is an artist working in a painstakingly beautiful way. All of the images you see above are created in analog with various tools. Kim utilizes stop motion photography, light, magnets, fluid dynamics and even builds custom electronics to achieve his art. After we were introduced to Kim via a mutual colleague (thanks Phil!), I decided to do a short interview.
7E: Your “compressed” series is very unique. What was the inspiration for doing analog style stop motion effects for visuals that would usually be created digitally?
As a software designer, I spend a lot of time in front of a screen, pushing pixels. While this satisfies the systemic, logical designer in me, it leaves me looking for ways to express my creativity in more playful, freeform ways.
I love analog mediums - there’s something I find really special about the the look, feel, and imperfect nature of vinyl records, photographic film, analog synths. But I’m also heavily influenced by the abstract work of generative code artists such as Robert Hodgin and Erik Natzke. So, inspired by the analog visual effects in films such as 2001, Solaris and Flash Gordon, I started playing around with creating rich abstract visuals using everything from hand soap to ferrofluid. That was really the genesis of the Compressed series.
Compressed 03fromKim PimmelonVimeo.
7E: I see you’re also an electronic musician. How does music influence your work? Also, what are some of your favorite synths and effects?
I usually start with the visuals, but very quickly the music and visuals become two parts of the same creative expression. Pacing and rhythm influence editing. Color and texture affect tone. I have to admit my lovely Juno 106 and other analog kit are gathering dust as Ableton Live fits into my busy life better.
7E: Could you describe the technical aspects involved in creating the Light Drive series?
Light Drive was a great fusion of the playful expression of analog and the powerful control of digital. Every frame of the video is a long exposure light painting. The lights used for the exposures were placed on a Technics 1200 turntable and controlled remotely using Arduinos, bluetooth modules and Processing. The lights were attached to motors and wire armatures, which I could manually tweak to adjust the shape of the light’s rotated form. The pitch controller on the turntable let me directly control timing, while the digital pipeline was great for sequencing and motion control.
I also built a custom camera timer for my DSLR from a cannibalized Nikon wired remote, an Arduino. This gave me lots of flexibility for adjusting the timing and length of long exposure sequences.
Light DrivefromKim PimmelonVimeo.
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Kim Pimmel interview coming next week
Kim creates stop motion analog vfx with things like ferrofluid, toner particles and magnets. He’s also into synths … our type of guy. Full interview coming next week!
-terry
twitter.com/7electrons
Huge apologies to our loyal 7E followers for not posting for a while. Terry and I have been flooded with new responsibilities as fresh parents. All the while, we’ve been building our new pro audio company, Meris from the ground up. However, we just released a collaborative video with an artist we truly admire and love - Makeup and Vanity Set. Directed by the talented filmmaker Joey Ciccoline. If you’re a fan of electronic music, synths and pro audio gear, check it out. Get haunted.
Our Art and Engineering Teaser. Meet Ottobit.
No quarters needed. Crush bits, de-rez and sonic destroy.
You’re nervous. Relax.
Big changes are in the horizon. We’re looking forward to announcing soon. In the meantime, I’m doing my best by filtering the good vibes from all the noise in this world.
Here’s a late summer playlist I created. It consists of down-tempo trip-hop, funk, electronica, rap, etc. Smooooth and chill.
Above: Dâm Funk - a modern funk supreme. Love him.
-Jinna
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The song TVOD by The Normal but it’s TDOV instead.
I’ve been melancholic and re-visiting albums that complement my mood. While digging through my music collection I came across the experimental electro-art pop of K Á R Y Y N, a Syrian-Armenian American LA-based composer-producer. ‘The Quanta Series’ compiles a series of EPs released throughout 2018 but they feel like one complete project/album when absorbed as a whole. Suitable audio accoutrement for melancholy.
Here’s a bit from a piece on K Á R Y Y N:
“I have been for a long time now obsessed with [the idea of] computers gaining consciousness,” says K Á R Y Y N, who calls herself “a visual composer”, and talks about her music using the language of synaesthesia: describing sounds as colors and physical textures. “I processed the sounds I had made for something else and it just sort of spit out this thing for me which instantly sounded like a very metallic, magnetic gravel; really fertile wire mesh; a little bit of lavender tulle.”
When I ask which artists have influenced her sound, she’s quick to correct my phrasing, noting that she’s inspired by rather than directly influenced by the musicians she loves.. “I’m a huge John Tavener fan, I love Arvo Pärt,” she says of the classical choral music she’s currently obsessing over, though she maintains that she’s more influenced by the audio minutiae of the everyday. “I wouldn’t really say I’m a singer; I would say that I emote [vocally],” she tells me. “I’m very influenced by the sounds that make up daily life. The work is made up a lot of my voice, processed to sound like other things.” (Source)
Having a stand alone show at the Press Club on May 2nd. Make it out for glitchy art and music.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1564083680282557/
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❤️ (NOW AVAILABLE!)
BITTER/SWEET’s debut album “Digital Lovelife” has arrived!
Featuring music by Red Velvet and Black Forest, with guest production by @channelmono! Brought to you by No Signal Studio!
(reblogs are appreciated because Tumblr apparently delists tags if you post direct links)
❤️BITTER/SWEET’s debut album “Digital Lovelife” is coming out 12/23 (tomorrow!)
Coming soon to Bandcamp/Youtube/Soundcloud for free, featuring music by Red Velvet and Black Forest, with guest work by @channelmono! Brought to you by No Signal Studio!
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BITTER/SWEET — “SAD!!!” now released!
A happy song for sad people!
Available on Youtube and also on nosignal.studio/bitter-sweet for lossless download!
https://twitch.tv/b7acksoul follow me, I make beats and stuff…
